Fans hail Katie McCabe as 'little menace' and 'woman of the people ...

KATIE McCABE drew the ire of France fans with one cheeky free-kick routine during the Republic of Ireland's loss to France.

The Girls in Green kicked off their Euro 2025 qualifying campaign in Metz on Friday night, ultimately losing 1-0 to the world No3 side.

Katie McCabe and Ireland started the Euro 2025 qualifying campaign with a defeat to FranceMcCabe risked the ire of France fans for taking a free-kick further forward than she should have been allowed toCredit: Twitter/pau_awfcIt drew an amused reaction from fans on social mediaCredit: Twitter/pau_awfc

It was a game in which Eileen Gleeson's team were forced to feed off scraps, with little in the way of chances created throughout the 90 minutes.

Their most likely way back into the game was going to be through set-pieces, in particularly corners and free-kicks.

In the second-half, Ireland captain Katie McCabe lined up one such effort to swing the ball into the penalty area.

After the referee marked the location the free-kick would be taken from, they made their way to the penalty area, where the French defence and Irish attack had congregated.

McCabe took this chance to give herself an advantage by placing the ball beyond the spray, drawing boos and protests from the home supporters.

The Arsenal star only glanced up at the fans in response before taking the kick from the advanced position.

While the France fans were not impressed with this, fans watching from home had a laugh at the blatancy.

A clip was shared to social media by user @pau_awfc with the caption: "Just Katie McCabe".

In response, a legion of fans chimed in to give their take on McCabe's gamesmanship.

Niamh posted: "not a day goes by where she can’t be a silly menace" while Vic added: "would it even be a game if we didn’t get a little katie mccabe s***housery"

Carly said: "inventor of s***housery, woman of the people, queen of my heart, etc etc" and another fan posted: "She’s such a wind up"

Someone else commented: "she just love to be a little s*** and p*** off everyone"

Another said: "She is so unserious I love it" while someone else commented; "little menace"

REASON TO FEEL GLEE

Eileen Gleeson bemoaned the concession of what proved to be the winning goal after just six minutes.

However, she insisted that her team showed enough promise to build on for the rest of the campaign.

She said: “It was back post and second ball, these are the areas we talk about, it didn’t get organised quickly enough. The second ball didn’t get picked up. 

“We conceded that early which is annoying and disappointing for us and the girls. 

“But we still had to go another 90 minutes and we felt the girls put in a great shift and  came away with a loss. But we’re not overly displeased with the performance.

“In the second-half we went a little bit toe-to-toe with them and put them under pressure. A good performance to work off. 

“I felt a bit more belief from us up in the attacking third, getting good bodies in there and we potentially could have snatched a draw out of that one at the end.”